“Happy New Year!”, Brought to You By Mentos and Diet Coke

A few months ago, Bonny Annie came home from her home school tutorial wanting me to run to the store to buy Mentos and Diet Coke.

“Why?” I asked.  It’s a fair question, don’t you think?  Especially since neither of those two items ever make it onto my shopping list.

“Because some kids were telling me today that if you eat Mentos and then drink Diet Coke, that foam will come shooting out of your mouth, and I wanted to try it,” she answered.

“Oh, well, hmmmm….we’ll see,” I said.

I never bought the Mentos and Diet Coke.  If you’re  a parent, and you’re reading this, I think you probably understand.  But Bonny Annie shared the information with Dirty Harry, who was also interested in having foam shoot out of his mouth, and they both harassed me half to death about it.

So one time I was in Wal-mart, looking for a birthday gift for Dirty Harry to take to a party, when I stumbled upon the above.  I bought four of them:  two for birthday gifts and two for the kids’ stockings.  They were ever so excited to find them on Christmas morning and wanted to shoot them off right away, but I made them wait until New Year’s.  I thought it would be a celebratory way to ring the year in because you know balls dropping are waaaaay overrated.  Now, Coke geysers….that’s something to write home about!

Apparently the idea here is that the candy goes right down into the soda bottle causing the geyser to shoot straight up, instead of out of your mouth.  Much, much more appealing, I thought.  The little package, which cost less than $4, came with everything you need except for the  soda (and we went cheap on that and bought Kroger’s generic brand).

Here are Big D and Bonny Annie, setting up for the explosion…

And then here’s a quick video of what happened after they pulled the cord and ran…

Not only can you still eat the Mentos after all this, but what is left of the soda is fine for consumption as well.

For you scientific types, here’s the explanation on the back of the package…

Truth be told, Dirty Harry still wants to try it in his mouth.  And I’ve tried to tell him, that if he’d just once and for all brush his teeth really, really well that he’d create a foam that would rival the most rabid of dogs.